The Bad Seed Read online

  His death was the only way I could inherit.

  From the moment I said “I do,” I felt that Robert treated me as a possession, like something that existed only to please him and something that he could show off to his ridiculous friends. Robert never said it explicitly; he didn’t need to. He made it perfectly clear with his disapproving glares that cut with the sharpness of a blade. Robert’s heavy expectation that I become the perfect husband weighed heavily on me from the time I opened my eyes in the morning until I laid head to pillow at night. I had to maintain a certain weight, keep a certain appearance, speak with the proper words, smile when I didn’t feel like it, and laugh when nothing was funny. I had to organize little parties and be cordial to Robert’s annoying friends. I had to tend to his every need, be at his beck and call, and perform vulgar sexual acts that would make experienced hookers blush. Sex with Robert made me feel dirty, like a little whore with porn star aspirations.

  “Shit, I’m beginning to think the only way for me to get out of this is for him to die.” I spoke with a light bounce in my voice, as if I were joking; even still, a heavy silence wedged its way into the conversation. I chose the words carefully to gauge Nigel’s reaction to the idea of Robert’s death.

  “Well,” Nigel said after pause, “that is one way. As of now, you are his major benefactor.”

  I chuckled. “Isn’t that interesting?”

  “Blues,” he said with some concern rising in his voice, “what are you thinking?”

  “Oh, nothing. Merely fantasizing.”

  “If I’m reading your thoughts correctly, and I’m sure I am, I don’t want you to entertain those thoughts. Fantasies can be dangerous.”

  I remained silent.

  “Blues, do you hear me? Blues?”

  “Yeah, baby. Don’t worry. I was only joking.”

  “I don’t want you doing anything crazy,” he said.

  Nigel’s loyalty to Robert was strong, even though we were fucking. Sex is a long way from murder, and I doubted that homicide ever figured into Nigel’s career advancement plans. He was ambitious, but not murderous. He wasn’t like me. So, I kept him in the dark. If things went according to my plan, Robert would be dead in a matter of weeks and I would be rich beyond my wildest imagination. Then, there would be no need to wiggle my way out of a tight pre-nup.

  “Trust me, I won’t.” I took a long drag off the cigarette and expelled smoke into the night air. “I’ve started smoking again,” I said, trying to change the subject. I wanted him to know what the stress of living with my lawfully wedded husband, Mr. Robert P. Douglas, had done to me; it had driven me to a pack and a half a day of nicotine. I hoped my rising levels of stress would make Nigel work harder at finding a way out of this marriage. I wasn’t completely heartless and my ideal solution was not homicide. If Nigel could find a way for me to walk away with at least five million dollars, I’d consider letting Robert live, but Nigel had a small window of opportunity to make it happen. For Robert’s sake, Nigel needed to get me a divorce and a seven-figure settlement quick, fast, and in a hurry.

  I inhaled deeply. My vice had once again found a place in my life; even my vanity couldn’t keep the cigarettes away from me. Robert smoked and now so did I, along with regular puffs of marijuana and an occasional bump of cocaine—anything to make living with Robert more tolerable.

  I often thought about what smoking and other drugs would do to my looks if I kept up the habit. I imagined that my dark, smooth skin would begin to resemble worn leather, and lines would begin to snake across my face from the corners of my mouth when I smiled; lines would stretch out in all directions from the corner of my eyes like a spider’s web.

  I was blessed with a strong bone structure, full lips, and deep, almond-shaped eyes. My looks were unique, like a proud African warrior. The immutable blackness of my perfect skin was sublime. People often mistook me for a model, but I always believed that most models would look ordinary standing next to me. I had always been envied and despised for being extraordinary. My looks wouldn’t last forever, and who would I be without my looks? For me, there was nothing sadder than the fading beauty of a fading fag still holding on to the glory of his faded youth. I could never live like that. I had a plan. Robert’s money would help ensure that would never be my fate. The moment anything on me began to sag, I was going somewhere to get it jacked up.

  At twenty-seven years young, I still had it going on; in fact, I had never been in better shape, but smoking had become a habit born out of necessity. It was the only thing keeping me from setting Robert on fire while he slept.

  Nigel was speaking again, but his words didn’t register; instead, I listened to the velvety voice of my paramour. His calming voice ushered in a wave of peace and quieted my discordant thoughts.

  “Can we fuck tomorrow?” I interrupted. “I need you to meet me at our spot tomorrow during lunch. After tonight, I’ll need the touch and feel of a real man.”

  “We can fuck whenever you like. I got you, baby.” The rich baritone of his voice spun deeply into my ears and burned its way down to my loins like fire. I felt his heat, and the anticipation of his touch made my dick jump. “I love you. I really do.”

  “I love you, too.” I said it, but I wasn’t even sure I understood what love was. I just knew the words sounded nice. “Baby, one last thing. Is Robert planning on giving away any more money that I need to know about? This donation spree he’s been on lately is going to send us to the homeless shelter.”

  “He hasn’t mentioned anything to me. Why?”

  “I wanna make sure he has something left to give me when you get me my settlement.”

  “Trust me; there’s more than enough to go around.”

  “If you say so. Aight, baby. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I took a last drag off my cigarette, let it fall to the asphalt, and crushed the bud underneath my foot.

  When I was preparing to put the phone in my pocket, it made a sound to alert me that I had received a text message. I looked down at the screen and saw the message was from “Mama,” the code name I had given Marquis. Truth be told, I hadn’t spoken to my real “Mama” in years. I looked at the message on the screen.

  WHEN CAN WE HOOK UP?

  Marquis and I usually fucked a few times a month and it had been almost two months since I had seen him. I tried to keep the business of killing Robert separate from the business of fucking Marquis, but sometimes, we’d lie in bed and talk about Robert’s death as casually as we talked about a television program.

  I liked Marquis; probably a little more than I should. He was a little thug, but he wasn’t a killer without a conscience. He agreed to be the trigger man in this plot because, in part, he had fallen for me and I often told him about the many abuses I suffered at Robert’s hands, including physical violence, which I made up to convince Marquis. Robert had never laid a hand on me, though I’m sure there were times he wanted to slap the shit out of me. My chicanery worked like a charm on Marquis—he believed every word I told him and his hatred for Robert built up in his system. He’d used that hatred, one day, to kill him.

  I sent a reply text.

  SOON. I’LL CALL YOU.

  I took a deep breath, puffed out my chest, and walked back into the restaurant with my head held high.

  I couldn’t wait for Robert to die.

  My day wasn’t just coming—it had arrived.

  CHAPTER 3

  After Robert and I left the restaurant and arrived at our Georgetown mansion, he didn’t waste any time trying to ravage my body. The coarse skin on his hands—hardened from years of cigar smoking—felt like sandpaper against my smooth skin. We barely made it to the staircase before Robert forced his forked tongue into my mouth. He pawed my ass and tried to force me down onto the staircase so that he could continue his gritty sexual assault.

  “Baby, baby, calm down. We have all night.” I pushed him away gently as he continued kissing me sloppily, his wet tongue darting across my face like a liza
rd. Uggghhh. I wanted to kick him in the nuts and toss him out of a window. “Tell you what, why don’t you go upstairs while I make us a couple of drinks? I’ll meet you in the bedroom and then we can do whatever you like,” I said in a sing-song voice with a seductive wink and smile. He paused momentarily in contemplation, his thin top lip curling up in the corner.

  Ugggghhh, just die.

  “Just don’t be too long. Daddy needs some attention,” he said as he grabbed his puny penis through his pants. “While you’re down here, put some food in Bailey’s dish. I don’t want her whining all night.”

  I watched him maneuver himself up the winding staircase. Wouldn’t it be a blessing if he lost his footing, tumbled down the stairs, and cracked his head open on the cold, marble floor?

  I made my way into the kitchen so that I could feed Robert’s pussy. The only thing I hated more than Robert was that damned cat of his. She never liked me. The first time I came home with Robert, she arched her back and stared at me with those cold green eyes; she hissed as if she sensed real danger. I wanted to hiss back, but Robert would’ve thought I was crazy. Since then, she’d become slightly more cordial toward me; I guess she recognized I was there to stay. Now when she walked into the room where I was, she’d pause, glance at me for a second in a haughty manner, and keep it moving. She’d learned who was runnin’ shit around there.

  Robert had had Bailey for eight years and I’m not sure how long cats live, but it was time she took a dirt nap. Maybe when I killed Robert, I’d tie a brick around her neck and throw her into the swimming pool.

  I made my way over to the bar in the den and poured myself a shot of whiskey. I took it to the head and poured another one, ignoring the burning in my throat. Plan B was that if I had to have sex with him, then I needed to be so drunk that I didn’t vomit when he touched me. Plan A was to drug his old ass so that he’d pass out and think nothing more of having sex. I kept vials of GHB—the date rape drug—in the house because I never knew when the mood would strike him. Usually, his sexual aggression followed drinking so I’d learned how to nip it in the bud. When he asked for a drink—and he always asked for an evening cock-tail—I’d slip him something special. Two teaspoons usually did the trick. It wasn’t unusual for him to pass out after a night of drinking so when I drugged him and he didn’t wake until the next morning, he never thought anything of it. I didn’t drug him all the time; only those times when I didn’t have the wherewithal to stomach his touch.

  I moved over to the cabinet opposite the wall, opened the drawer, and reached way into the back. I pulled out a small vial that contained the drug. “Lady, please be my friend tonight,” I said as if the clear liquid was a sentient being. I had to do something. I didn’t have it in me, and I certainly didn’t want it in me tonight. I could hear his hacking cough from upstairs as I poured the colorless, tasteless, and odorless liquid into his glass. Now, I had to buy some time for the concoction to take effect.

  As I was about to leave the kitchen, a wicked thought dawned on me. I stopped dead in my tracks and looked carefully around the room, as if someone could have been in the room. Bailey hovered in the corner, with a smug look on her face.

  “Get outta here,” I said, trying to scare her away, but she didn’t move. She stared at me and I swear that she twisted her top lip and shook her head, as if in disgust. “What are you looking at, bitch? Fuck you.” I turned my back to her so that she wouldn’t see the act. Quickly, I unzipped my jeans and pulled out my dick. Tonight, he’d have a special kind of Whiskey Sour made with my unique, organic ingredient. I lowered the glass to my dick and peed into in his drink, not enough to fill the glass, but more than a few drops. I shook the glass from side to side so that the pee mixed well with the whiskey.

  I walked upstairs, trying to conceal my smile. When I opened the door to our master bedroom, Robert stood in the center of the room, naked, wearing a leather mask, black combat boots, and carrying a whip. I wanted to vomit.

  Just die.

  “You ready for this?” he asked as he grabbed his anemic dick engorged by the use of a cock ring.

  “Now, you know I need some time to prepare myself. I’m going to go into the bathroom to get ready. You stay out here and enjoy this drink. I stirred it with my dick,” I added, knowing the effect it would have on him. He cracked the leather as a sign of approval.

  “You nasty little thing. Gimme that drink.” He practically snatched the drink out of my hand.

  “Give me a few minutes. When I come back, I’m going to rock your world.”

  “I’m counting on it.” He brought the drink to his lips and stopped suddenly. “Well, hurry up. Daddy’s ready now!” He slapped me on the ass—hard! My eyes grew big and I held my breath and watched as he took a hearty swig of his drink. I could tell that the first swig stung because his face puckered up like a prune. “This is strong; just like I like it,” he said as he smacked his lips, “tastes different though.”

  Shug Avery’s pee ain’t got nothing on me!

  I tried very hard not to laugh and prayed that by the time I got out of the shower, he would have passed out.

  “Come here and give me a kiss.”

  Fuck that.

  “Let’s save that until I get out of the shower.” I turned my back to him and burst into laughter as I entered the bathroom and closed the door.

  I emerged from the bathroom some forty-five minutes later and, to my delight, Robert was asleep lying across the bed, still wearing that damned mask and those boots, with that flea bag cat curled up next to him. The empty glass was on the nightstand. Old fool. Bailey raised her head and looked at me as I stood in the doorway.

  “Fuck you, too,” I said to her.

  I happily strolled by him and his pussycat and stepped out onto the balcony. I couldn’t have been happier that I didn’t have to fuck him tonight.

  I inhaled deeply. I stood out on the balcony and looked at the lights that dotted the landscape. Then, I looked back into our master bedroom at Robert, who lay naked across the bed, his peanut-colored flesh exposed to the world. I watched his chest rise with each inhalation and then deflate. Which breath would be his last?

  In business, Robert was notorious for his mercilessness. The years of bloody fights with his enemies—battles he usually won—had hardened him. Building his huge real estate empire with properties that stretched from coast to coast required a certain viciousness. He had driven many of his enemies into bankruptcy or worse. I heard that one of them actually committed suicide when Robert seized control of his company and forced him out. When I buried Robert, I’m sure the line of people waiting to spit on his grave would snake through the cemetery.

  I gazed into the night sky and lost myself in my thoughts. I had come a long way from East Texas. I had grown up a lot and experienced far too many things to recall. I thought about how rough my life was then compared to now. Growing up was no bed of roses for me. I learned at an early age that beautiful, blue-black boys with high cheekbones and deep-set almond-shaped eyes who grew up in the rural south with angry fathers and drunken stepmothers weren’t supposed to be loved. Growing up, I was far too pretty for my father and far too black for my stepmother. In my house, the notion of love was a fallacy, and when the façade faded, it left us broken and bitter. I only knew love as a few well-chosen curse words hurled at me with such force that I felt it in my chest; the venom of those words entered my bloodstream and poisoned every inch of my body; that kind of love changes children—it changed me into something fierce.

  In my experience, love wasn’t something that was real, but I knew pain well—it had been a constant companion. In those dark and lonely moments as a child, I decided that one day I’d have a better life, a perfect life—by any means necessary.

  As I grew up, I learned my worth.

  I learned there are plenty of people in search of pretty young black men ; more than enough to provide me with the comforts of life that eluded me as a child. Men, fascinated by my gifts, had always t
ried to own me; women beguiled by my charms, wanted to wed me. I used them all. In spite of growing up in a world that devalued the exquisiteness of my black skin, I learned to love myself and I harnessed the power of my physicality. Beauty is the ultimate commodity and can be traded in any market in the world; it is a universal currency and I possessed it in abundance. Suitors pursued me and many wanted to tame me, but like trying to catch lightning in a bottle, no one could ever possess me.

  Over the years, my life ain’t been no crystal stair. I had been used, abused, chewed up, lied to, hoodwinked, bamboozled, and led astray; I had been disowned, dishonored, and thoroughly dissed but, like the air, I rose. I always did. I stood tall in the face of adversity and I persevered. I became the master of my own fate. I decided that as soon as I could get away from my hard knock life, I would run and never look back.

  And I hadn’t.

  Over the years, I learned to reveal only those parts of myself absolutely necessary. Everything else could be created. Nothing about me was real; I was an illusion, all smoke and mirrors. I was a fantasy, a chameleon who had mastered the art of remaining cloaked in plain sight. I had learned to bend perceptions at will, to fit any situation. No one knew me because I didn’t exist, except for my manufactured image.

  As soon as I graduated high school, I took what money I had saved up from waiting tables at the Whispering Hollow Country Club and from trickin’ in backseats of old Chevys, and I caught the first thing smoking toward New York City—big city of dreams. I packed my few belongings and sparse memories and slipped out of the house in the dead of night to begin a new life. I refused to spend the rest of my life in misery in the backwoods of East Texas. I was destined for greatness and the only place that could contain the force of what I knew I was to become was New York City.

  When I arrived in New York, I thought about calling home and letting them know where I was, but decided to let them wonder. I hoped that my disappearing act would cause worry and pain, but they didn’t care. I’m sure they were happy there was one less mouth to feed. I often wondered how long it took for them to realize that I was gone.